Wheat – This Rough Magic

From where I’m sitting you can draw neat parallels between the twin underachievers the Wrens and Wheat. Both have been bubbling underneath the radar for years despite obliging with a succession of brilliant albums. The music is intricate, soulful and impressed with endless longevity. Sadly both remain a distant revelation, beings that a future generation will laud with feverish adulation. All is not lost for Wheat at least with strong indications that a new album is on the way titled ‘Everyday I Said A Prayer For Kathy and Made A One Inch Square’. ‘This Rough Magic’ is taken from the bands last album ‘Per Second, Per Second…’ and sketches their scattershot brilliance. Always gentle and alluring ‘This Rough Magic’ unwraps several plots over its 5 minutes, each is as intriguing as the next. Dave Fridmann sat in on production and the exotic twists are nothing less than you’d expect from the Mercury Rev man. KD